date with a bike

I’d dropped him off at school that morning; he rode his little balance bike the whole way there. Then I grabbed the train and went to work, fully planning to pick him up after school.

Schedule switch, I stayed the whole day at work, the bike, balanced against a filing cabinet, my constant companion. The bike is named Arcee, after the motorcycle Transformer. At first I thought, “oh good, my son is egalitarian, he has no issue with naming his bike after a girl.” But it turns out that whenever I refer to Arcee as she, he corrects me, and calls her he.

It’s a vehicle gender confusion bonanza. Also he calls everyone he. And it’s an odd thing where I want him to be able to identify differences between men and women, but also I have no idea what to tell him those differences are. So we call everyone he, in early 20th-Century fashion. If there’s anything I’ve learned so far through raising this boy, it’s that gender sorts itself out. It’s defined by the definer, defined by the kid.

Long story short, in order to make sure C would be able to get to school this morning, via Arcee instead of the twenty-five hours it takes for a pre-schooler to walk 10 blocks, I had to take the bike along with me.

So I took her to a show, and then back to my place.

We rode the subway together.We took in the sights.We sang along on Broadway.C was super glad to have his bike back home this morning.Reunited.